<p>Thought I’d revive this thread, so that prospective students can compare it against the ‘101 reasons why Stanford is awesome’ thread.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the arts - while Stanford has made huge gains in the arts (see [Arts</a> at Stanford University, Presented by SiCa](<a href=“http://sica.stanford.edu%5DArts”>http://sica.stanford.edu)), it’s still Stanford’s weakest area</p></li>
<li><p>grading - as at most schools, it can be hard to know where you stand, since it depends on curves, and even when you know the breakdown of your grade (this % in assignments, etc.), it’s hard to know how you’re doing in each area. On the other hand, I think this uncertainty pushes students to work harder, as they’d rather err on the safe side, which in a way legitimizes grade inflation.</p></li>
<li><p>international students - I wish Stanford had a more international student body. Currently, it’s <10% among undergrads, though much higher in grad students. I also think Stanford could become need-blind for internationals. </p></li>
<li><p>professional schools - they could involve undergrads more, esp. the business and law schools. Students can take classes at them, but within a restricted set. It’d be neat to see some joint degree programs for undergrads.</p></li>
<li><p>interdisciplinary majors - Stanford has lots of interesting interdisciplinary majors, but that can be a bad thing, since no other school has them. For example, it has Mathematical and Computational Science instead of statistics, Symbolic Systems instead of cognitive science, etc. Employers and grad schools might raise their eyebrows at them.</p></li>
<li><p>alcohol drinking - many students have complained about the focus on alcohol. IMO that’s the nature of college, but it’s still easy to stay away from. A new office on alcohol policy has been created and promotes non-alcoholic events.</p></li>
<li><p>duck syndrome - this has nothing to do with students not complaining about their work (students do this plentifully), and everything to do with an unwillingness to show how that work is affecting you. Students may be feeling like they’re genuinely struggling, but won’t show how it’s getting to them. That’s what the duck syndrome is. Part of this is the nature of high-achieving students, who likely haven’t had to own up to personal failure before. Part of it has to do with a self-perpetuating student culture, which is one of happiness - you’re expected to love Stanford, and most do. But it’s different from other schools like MIT, where it’s expected that you will hate it at times, or Harvard, which has a reputation for students who are displeased with the status quo. So at these schools, it’s okay to show your displeasure, which may be why the duck syndrome, while present at these (again it’s a problem with high-achieving student), isn’t as pronounced.</p></li>
<li><p>advising - some complain about this, but I call BS. For one, students at every school complain about advising, which to me says that advising can never really live up to student expectations. More importantly, you have so many advisers at your fingertips – premajor adviser, residence dean, academic director, departmental adviser, a major adviser, faculty advisers, full-time advisers at the UAR, people at the Career Development Center, etc. There are tons of people to advise you, and you can generally walk in - students who complain about it aren’t seeking them out. Stanford now has required meetings with advisers for those who haven’t declared their major.</p></li>
<li><p>diversity of ideologies - if you’re liberal, you’ll be in heaven. If you aren’t, the liberal environment may grate you.</p></li>
<li><p>Palm Drive - too long! It’s like a mile long.</p></li>
<li><p>bike racks - there were never enough, and there would be tons of stand-alone bikes locked only to themselves. I heard the administration has been fixing this.</p></li>
<li><p>preprofessionalism - many students do have a preprofessional outlook - that they’re in college to get a degree and go into business or medicine or whathaveyou. It’s annoying, but thankfully they’re in the minority.</p></li>
<li><p>on-campus music events - Stanford has been getting better at this, but you generally won’t see big-time bands or rappers on campus. But there are other big names that come to campus, like Joseph Gordon Levitt or the Dalai Lama.</p></li>
<li><p>IDs for entry into dorms - seriously, what’s the point of having card-readers on the entry doors but not to students’ doors? That means you have to take out your key anyway. I have friends at UCs who said that both doors have card-readers, so why can’t Stanford?</p></li>
<li><p>distribution requirements - their current implementation is kinda pointless IMO, but apparently the SUES report recommends some pretty big changes (you can read about it in the Daily)</p></li>
<li><p>Admit Weekend - ‘Camp Stanford’ is the most commonly used phrase for it. It doesn’t really give an accurate portrayal of Stanford life, although this is a problem at most admit weekends. The dorm cheering is stupid - you won’t be dealing with that past NSO. ;)</p></li>
<li><p>Lake Lagunita - I wish they would start filling Lake Lagunita again, but the city of Palo Alto / county of Santa Clara have used the California tiger salamander for political gain, to stop Stanford from developing in the area. It’s meant that one of Stanford’s oldest traditions - Spring Follies - can’t occur.</p></li>
<li><p>Greek - I think the Greek scene is great and provides a social venue for students, but it does worry me that Stanford has gone from being 13% Greek to ~24% Greek.</p></li>
</ul>